Lane Cove – NSW 2023

Lane Cove council.ithink is alp green controlled.

It is indeed Mick – combined with two centrist Indies they make a bloc of 6 vs the Liberals 3. An ALP Mayor – a situation in this part of Sydney that doesn’t get much recognition

There’s a teal-like group called North Sydney’s Independent and they’re looking to emulate the teal success in North Sydney at the federal election. Kylea Tink, the local federal MP, founded this group. From memory, Hunters Hill and Woolwich are old school Liberal areas and were not teal-friendly. I’m skeptical of how the teals would perform in middle class suburbs in the western part of the seat.

Most likely Liberal hold. Teals or independents will have more luck in seats like the North Shore, Manly or Willoughby.

The hopes for a teal win here feel a bit too optimistic. It’s hard to imagine there’s much appetite for a teal in Putney/ Top Ryde part of the electorate.

I decided to break down the likely 2CP for this electorate from the Redbridge poll:
Primary:
LIB: 36%
ALP: 33%
IND: 15%
GRN: 8%
OTH: 6%
As 3% are undecided and there is no way of knowing what the Others vote may go to, there is around a 4% margin of error for this estimate.
2PP:
LIB 0.2% vs ALP, LIB 6.3% vs IND
I don’t think a 14.5% 2PP swing is too likely here, but shows an independent would not win on the polling figures.

Agree Ben and Andrew – it’s being overlooked that the western half of this state electorate overlaps with Federal seat of Bennelong, which had an 8% swing to ALP. Labor’s primary vote also held up very across the northern part of Lane Cove Council area, with soft left vote in the harbourside suburbs switching to the IND.

Labor has been active on the ground across the whole seat for several cycles now and has numerous local Councillors. There was a decent IND in 2019 and they took votes off the Liberal’s more than Labor, getting only 11%. The Teal candidate announced today will do well to get >20% but even that that doesn’t look enough to get into second, let alone first when OPV is considered.

I can’t see 14% 2PP swing, but 8-10% could be ion the cards

The swing to Labor in the part of Bennelong which overlaps with Lane Cove was actually a bit less compared to the seatwide average. I think Anthony Roberts could be in trouble though, being a factionally right wing MP in a small-l Liberal seat facing a teal and a Labor challenger. I don’t think Labor will take this seat too seriously but Liberals may need to divert resources to Lane Cove of all seats.

However it does seem like federally the Liberals would have won this, with the 2CP vs the Teal in the North Sydney part being slightly in favour of the Liberals after non-election day vote is added and the part in Bennelong also being rather favourable to the Liberals.

It will not be a target seat for Labor but they aren’t going to ‘run dead’ either – almost all non held seats are always somewhere in between these two extremes.
I think this is the hardest for a Teal in the area. I can’t see the ALP and GRN vote collapsing under the weight of strategic voting in around 80% of the electorate – not with a federal Labor MP on one side and a Labor controlled Council on the other. So the IND PV is going to be in the low 20%’s at best, and that might get them into 2nd – or 3rd then 2nd on GRN preferences. But they will be a long way – circa 10-15% – behind the LIB PV as they were in North Sydney, and with OPV, making that up isn’t going to happen.

The LIB PV would have to be down >15%, and I am not sure the conditions are there for a fall of that magnitude, not matter how many times Anthony Roberts carried coal into Parliament.

Opv bonus 10 to 12 % o
So real margin.lower .unlikely
Alp win

Just to correct Votante’s comment from November 6 2022, Kylea Tink did not found North Sydney’s Independent. She was found by them.

By the strangest of coincidences, Roberts just walked into a visitor centre where I am on duty at the moment. We had a long talk about many things … but NOT politics, apart from some John Howard stuff (he was Howard’s Chief of Staff) Even when he told me his name, I didn’t twig … so an opportunity missed.

Around our house, the Tealishness of Independents is a constant topic, but Lane Cove, we figure to be off our radar. Voices of Warringah is helping C.A.N. to run some forums, but we are not doing anything on Lane Cove.

Geoff Lambert

FWIW – the AES forecasts have ALP in Lane Cove well ahead of the Teal IND, 21% to 15%. Still think that’s low for Labor. (They have Roberts falling to 40% – there seems to be too many votes left over….).

Whereas in North Shore and Willoughby, the AES forecasts have ALP and the leading IND (Teal backed in North Shore, not so in Willoughby) basically even on around 16% and 15% each. Not sure any of it is entirely accurate, but the variance between the seats is instructive on what public polling information is saying

I also note that the initial version of the ABC election preview had Lane Cove listed as a Key Seat, which included a statement that the IND Victoria Davidson was the main opponent to Liberal MP, Anthony Roberts, and only mentioned the Labor candidate as an after thought in the last sentence. The description of Lane Cove as a Key Seat (based on assumptions of the strength of the Teal IND challenge) has now been deleted.

@mick your forgetting the libs won on first preferences. also option preferences not flowing also effect labor not just libs so margin accurate
lib win

Taking the 2019 figures how would you align Mr Quinn left or right the way I work out notional opv bonus is add all left then add all right . Then work out difference and then compare with actual 2pp .. the difference I call the opv bonus.
It is a fair bet that the liberals will poll less than an absolute majority here in 2023. Only 51% in 2019

This seat is a real question about who finishes 2nd between Labor and the IND.

Currently on AEForecasts, if Labor Finishes 2nd, Liberal win this seat with a margin of 9.2%. Comfortable. Sportsbet also has this at $1.20 LIB, suggesting that they think that Labor will finish 2nd here as well.

However, if IND finishes 2nd, then it is 50.1-49.9 to LIB.

My gut feel is that Labor is not doing enough to encourage some tactical voting at this stage.

You’ve lost me Hawkeye_au

Labor got 20% of the vote in 2019 and easily beat a viable IND, the Greens got almost another 11%, and you think they should encourage tactical voting? Do you think the local Labor campaign is trying to come 3rd??
WTF?

I think the AEF view is about right here though they are going off state-wide polls and missing some local issues. I’d knock a few (2- 4%) points of Liberal and and split it amongst Labor and IND. Labor will be around 5% ahead of IND on Primary

If all the reports on this being the most concerning teal challenge for the Libs are true, then the $5.50 odds for the Independent seems a bit out of whack, right?

I know there are always bogus “leaks” of internal polls put out by campaigns to scare voters or whip up some media or whatever, but what I’m hearing from locals is that Anthony Roberts is not running a very good campaign at all and the teal guys are everywhere. I think Trent Zimmerman lost every booth here in 2022 to the teal candidate.

Only in half the seat, Darren. And in many of those seats it was Labor that outpolled the Teal IND on primary votes – sometimes easily (though the reverse was also true).

What reports are you referring too? Its actually been noticeable to me that this seat has not been mentioned much at all as a Teal threat. Have I missed something recent?

Maybe 2/3 of this seat belongs to the federal seat of North Sydney. The federal seat of North Sydney lies east of Pittwater Road. Trent Zimmerman’s highest 2PP results were around Hunters Hill. I wrote above that I doubt a teal would succeed at the state level where there’s middle-class suburbia in the western part.

@Insider, I read something that Darren might’ve read and might be referring to. This is from the SMH.
“Liberal strategists in NSW are increasingly confident that they will be able to stave off a teal wave, however Lane Cove, held by the Planning Minister Anthony Roberts, is seen as the most at-risk. Independent Victoria Davidson is contesting the seat which is on a margin of 14.7 per cent.”

@Insider: “I’d knock a few (2 – 4%) points of Liberal and and split it amongst Labor and IND. Labor will be around 5% ahead of IND on Primary”. Are you kidding? The Liberal primary vote in Lane Cove at the federal election was only 42%, which was 10.2% lower than the post-redistribution 2019 Liberal primary vote. Why would anyone who didn’t vote for the moderate Trent Zimmerman at the federal election vote for the much more conservative Anthony Roberts at the state election? 10.2% plus the 11.6% (post-redistribution) independent Richard Quinn got in 2019 would give independent Victoria Davidson 21.8% and finish ahead of Labor (20.1%). There’s no way Labor will finish second in Lane Cove. The Liberal primary vote can be even lower than 42%, and some Labor and Greens voters will also tactically vote for Victoria Davidson, plus those who voted for Keep Sydney Open in 2019, can push Davidson’s primary vote into the 30s and thus put the Liberals at serious risk.

I remember some close results alp VS liberals here in the past. The Ryde Gladesville votes seem better than I would expect

ABC declared this a Liberals Retain against Labor, but it looks like Victoria Davidson is basically equal to Labor on primaries. I imagine Greens Preferences will favour Davidson over Labor (dunno if enough so, noting North Sydney 2022 and OPV), and on a LIB vs IND this would be much closer 2pp race.

Greens HTV favours Teals over Labor, though their voters are more likely to rebel than others (Not in a Labor vs Liberal, but more so in a Labor vs X-Bench). If Davidson does make it to final 2, exhaustion rate wouldn’t be that bad because Labor was pushing “Number all squares” quite a lot this time – it benefits them in more places than ever before (In Traditional Contests, Independent vs Liberal Seats AND Balmain).

BTW in most Federal Teal Seats (Kooyong, Goldstein, Mackellar, Warringah, Wentworth and Curtin), Greens got eliminated on the 4pp count and generally they flowed about 60 Teal, 30 Labor, 10 Liberals, give or take a few. Bradfield and North Sydney somehow was closer at 47-43-10 ish. Lane Cove overlaps North Sydney. Is there an explanation for this? I am inclined to think it was because Boele wasn’t as well funded in Bradfield, and Labor actually went with a strong progressive candidate in North Sydney.

@ Leon, i agree that in Bradfield that the Teal did not receive as much coverage. Firstly, i agree with you that The Green preference flow to Teal over Labor is not as disciplined as in a classic ALP/LIB race when it is around 85-15% Furthermore, i believe there is some Green voters who still prefer Labor over Teal especially those who economically left wing (Red Greens as i call them) this occurs more when Labor is seen as competitive for example North Sydney or Hawthorn at the Victorian state election. Here you can see the preference flow to Teal from Greens is not as strong even though the Greens HTV recommended preferencing Teal second. However, we need to also remember that in seats such as North Sydney or Hawthorn when a Teal ran the Green primary vote also fell substantially as well so remaining Green voters are more hardcore Greens.

It’s more likely the teal will come 2nd in the 2PP in Lane Cove. With the current PVs, this seat would probably be an independent or Labor gain with CPV like at the federal election.

@Leon, generally the Greens and Labor preference teals before each other. Teals don’t preference anyone. If Greens or Labor come second in the 3PP count, the Liberals will win because teal preferences will exhaust. The Greens and Labor’s end game is to defeat Liberal MPs regardless of whether it’s a Labor, teal or Green candidate who wins.

Labor had hopes of winning North Sydney in 2022 because of the changing demographics and the pickup of the climate change vote. Labor and Liberals underestimated Kylea Tink who flew under the radar.

Most of that isn’t correct, Votante. Head office’s end game is to defeat Liberal MPs regardless of whether it’s a Labor, teal or Green candidate who wins, but it’s not true of most of the local branches.

Kylea Tink hardly ‘flew under the radar’ – she dropped $1.8m on the seat and her face was everywhere! Labor only had hopes of picking up the seat near the end of the campaign, when they realised what a good candidate they had and what the election dynamics were playing out like across the country.

The Teals and other IND on Saturday where pushing the number every square message on Saturday harder than Labor was, so it will be interesting to see what the Teal preferences exhaust rate is.

The Primaries are not basically equal – there’s 0.8% in it at the moment. That came down yesterday because Lane Cove EVC and Hunters Hill EVC were added – watch for it to widen again when the Ryde EVC is added and I suggest Absents will be a wash for the IND and she behind on postal on the first batch counted as well.

As outlined by posters above, the Green preference flow was pretty even in North Sydney, and don’t forget half of Lane Cove isn’t even in North Sydney. Greens PV is down heavily in Lane Cove and Willoughby and I think the theory that those remaining are the more likely to preference Labor than those that have already left, has a deal of merit.

And hello to Joseph, who’s comment from 24/3 I have only just seen now. “There’s no way Labor will finish second in Lane Cove”. How’s that looking? Whatever the outcome, Labor PV will be well up on 2019, whilst the IND will be much, much closer to 20% than 30%. Not sure where you live Joseph, but if you don’t know the seat better to be careful with your comments. Firstly, people were ok with Premier Dom – by the end ScoMo was toast – tht kept the Liberal vote up above 40% in a range of lower north shore seats. And to assume that Labor would get the same vote in 2023 and they did in 2019, doesn’t understand the seat or the candidate Labor was standing

Aaaand, right on que, the Ryde EVC pushes the ALP lead for second over the IND out from 330 votes to 940, over 2% gap now – if it gets beyond 2.5% I’m going to round that upto 5% so I can say I was correct last week. We will await what happens with the Green preferences but they would have to be much stronger than the federal election flow to the Teal to make up 2% difference, which will probably be more after final postals and Absents.

I didn’t get everything right in this election, but picked this result pretty well

It looked like a battle for second place, after preferences. Victoria Davidson is the only teal candidate who didn’t make the 2PP. It’s funny how Liberal insiders said that Lane Cove was most at-risk (see my quote above).

@Insider, Labor did have high hopes of flipping North Sydney in 2022. They put resouces here and Albo and even Kevin Rudd came here to campaign. I’m not sure about Labor/Liberal insiders but I certainly underestimated the ‘teal wave’ in metro Sydney. Before the 2022 federal election, it was rare for an independent to pick up a metropolitan seat.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/major-parties-say-labor-could-snatch-north-sydney-20220511-p5akfp

In hindsight, her primary vote isn’t even that high (25%) and perhaps the lowest out of all seat-winners but she got through with preferences from Greens and other minor and micro parties. I agree about the part that she spent lots of lots of money and her face was everywhere. Back then, I wasn’t convinced that anyone with strong campaign finances and resources e.g. Clive Palmer, would win easily. OK, Clive Palmer is probably the worst example on how to win an election.

I might have mistyped on the preferences part. The teals had HTV cards with 1 vote only but asked voters to number every box. I agree that they pushed hard without explicitly mentioning who to preference. Methinks the teals may have a higher exhaustion rate than Labor/Greens when Labor/Greens had explicitly mentioned an order of all candidates. It’s because some voters may look at the numbers and candidate names, rather than read the instructions. Also, because preferencing is trickier when you only want to vote 1 and there’s no guide on who to prefence 2nd or 3rd.

Hi Votante.

Labor had some, late hopes, of flipping North Sydney last year. Head office put very few resources into the seat. Yes, Albo visited, but he visited an “influencer” in her home and then headed off. The meeting could have taken place on the moon, and it would still have happened – actually had nothing to do with North Sydney. Kevin Rudd dropped in at 8am 2 days before election as he was killing time before a late morning flight back to Brisbane.

After spending several hours of election day on a booth with Michael Photios, I became pretty sure that that AFR story was dropped by the Liberals hoping to encourage Labor voters to stick with their candidate and not vote tactically – by that stage they knew their best chance of holding on was for Labor to come 2nd – in which they would have been proved correct approx by 1%.

On preference exhaustion, we will have to wait and see until the 2CP count for all combinations is issued but it is intriguing to me that on the Pollbludger results tool the exhaustion rate in Lane Cove is 27.8% (which is about 2/3 Victoria Davidson First preference votes and 1/3 Green/SAP) whilst in Willoughby it is 35% (this time about 2/3 Labor First preference votes and 1/3 Green/SAP). So that’s comparing across seats, at the moment and we will need to see what the two other figures are. Notable though the preference rate to the leading Liberal is what changes, not to the 2nd place getter – Tim James got just 1 in 10 of all preferences before exhaustion is accounted for

We wait to see what happens with preferences but Labor has finished 3.6% (1,800 votes) ahead of the Teal IND in Lane Cove

Can any point me to the full preference distribution for this seat. i cant seem to find it

https://vtr.elections.nsw.gov.au/SG2301/LA/lane-cove/dop/dop

Thanks Pollster, it seems when the Green was eliminated slightly more of it went to Labor than Teal despite the HTV card.

The full 2CP match ups are searchable and show Davidson would have lost 56/44 in the match up vs Liberals (after preferences). Actually a wider margin than Labor vs Liberals.

In North Shore and Willoughby the teals did actually perform better vs Libs than Labor, though the swings were still quite big towards Labor and the gaps not particularly large.

So I think commenters around here were on to something about North Sydney actually moving left and being an untapped source for Labor. Federally, Tink will probably still get the lion’s share of the left of Liberal vote and hang on, but it seems like North Sydney at least is moving left in general and isn’t just a Teal special (like e.g. Indi).